PHOTO BY HOLLY RAVAZZOLO
Rasheen Aldridge.
Bruce Franks isn't the only one getting a do-over — activist Rasheen Aldridge has won the right to a new election, too.
In a brief opinion issued today, St. Louis Circuit Court Judge Julian L. Bush ruled that there were "irregularities of sufficient magnitude" in a second race on the Democratic Party primary ballots this August to force a new election. This one, too, features a member of the Hubbard family, but this time it's Rodney Hubbard, the husband of State Rep. Penny Hubbard (D-St. Louis).
Hubbard will now have to defend his central committee seat a second time from challenger Rasheen Aldridge, a young activist who ran as part of a slate of progressive reformers taking on the entrenched party insiders. In his order, Judge Bush set that new election for November 8 — allowing one-stop shopping for Democrats voting for president.
Like Franks, Aldridge won a majority of votes cast at the polls — but was overwhelmed by the absentee ballots cast for his opponent. And like Franks, he teamed up with public interest lawyer David Roland to seek a new election.
Aldridge's race was even closer, with just 55 votes separating him and Rodney Hubbard Sr. Roland says the race was "plagued by precisely the same illegalities that the courts found" in Franks' case. He claims it's "indisputable" that at least 113 of the absentee ballots in the Fifth Ward race shouldn't have counted.
Franks won his do-over last month in a landslide. Aldridge, who's been protesting the Hubbard family's irregularities for months now, is surely hoping for the exact same outcome.
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